For Clients & Friends of The Gualco Group, Inc.

IN THIS ISSUE – “Collecting Chips for the Future”

GOVERNORS FUTURE & CURRENT

POLITICS

CLIMATE CHANGE & WATER

WATER

 

Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week, tailored to your business and advocacy interests.  Please feel free to forward.

Stay current daily!  For our focused updates via Twitter:

@jrgualco / @robertjgore / @gualcogroup

 

READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

 

FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 14, 2018

Governor’s Race Tightens, Sorta

We conducted this poll and present these results for public interest purposes. We have no client in these races.

Governor

44% Newsom – D

39% Cox – R

17% Unsure

-Cox well outperforms his GOP base (fewer than 25% of all California voters)

-Cox captures a similar percentage of the Latino voter as Newsom

-Intensity of support is strong for both candidates

Read poll results here:

https://www.probolskyresearch.com/2018/09/06/newsom-leads-cox-for-governor-but-not-by-large-margin-feinstein-over-de-leon/

 

Newsom & Cox Campaign Tactics Diverge

A few days after his Republican opponent launched a pair of websites attacking him as a privileged, San Francisco elitist, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom boarded a campaign bus with something else in mind: Shifting the balance of power in Washington, and returning the Democratic supermajority to both houses of the state Legislature.

Newsom isn’t focused on his Republican rival in the governor’s race, businessman John Cox. He was rallying support for Democrats Josh Harder, challenging Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, and TJ Cox, challenging Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford.

“I’m running for governor and we’re doing everything we can to win…but it won’t mean as much if that evening, Democrats don’t take back the House and we don’t restore some sanity,” Newsom said on his campaign bus outside Fresno. “I have tremendous anxiety of another two years of the status quo.”

By the end of this week, he will have campaigned for six Democratic House candidates and 15 state legislative candidates. His campaign has also spent $1 million on “get-out-the-vote” efforts and direct campaign contributions to the candidates.

Newsom’s strategy is to motivate Democrats to vote in the November general election and help national efforts to return the party to power in the House. Democratic activists are targeting 10 California congressional seats currently held by Republicans, including seven in districts that went for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016.

“If you are a frontrunner, especially with a comfortable lead, you can afford to do this. It’s all upside for him,” said Darry Sragow, publisher of the nonpartisan California Target Book. “The caveat is you can’t look like you’re hiding or not taking the campaign seriously, so it’s the perfect thing for him to be getting out there being busy and active and engaged with voters.”

A strong Democratic turnout could also help Newsom advance his policy agenda, if elected governor.

“He’s collecting chips for the future,” said Dan Schnur, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication, Leadership & Policy. “Governors can’t make things happen unilaterally. He needs allies in the Legislature and Congress.”

“There are some who would say he’s simply collecting endorsements for a presidential campaign, but these are allies and supporters who could be of great help to him if he’s elected governor,” Schnur said.

Newsom has said repeatedly during the campaign that he has no plans to run for president — a point he repeated Wednesday.

“I…have no interest in anything to do with any of that.”

He added: “No one believes it, my friends don’t either…”

Newsom acknowledged that helping Democrats win seats in the Legislature and Congress could benefit him in advancing his policy goals, such as establishing a universal health care system that covers everyone, including undocumented immigrants.

The “success” of California Democrats, Newsom said, “over the last few years can be primarily attached to these supermajorities in the Legislature, and the ease to which Gov. Brown was was able to advance his agenda.”

Cox, meanwhile, is attempting to gain traction in the race by attacking Newsom for his business ties to wealthy San Francisco families, on his policy positions and for declining to participate in multiple debates.

On a website unveiled last week, Cox called Newsom a “fortunate son.” He challenged him to a pull up contest on Twitter last month, and later said “Gavin Newsom NOT for governor,” linking to a news article about Newsom’s support for expanding health coverage to undocumented immigrants. Cox continued his social media criticism, this week denouncing Newsom for declining to participate in a series of gubernatorial debates, including on on Fox News.

As for Newsom’s focus on Congressional races, Cox spokesman Matt Shupe said: “Why should Californians expect anything different from the guy who barely shows up for his job as Lieutenant Governor?”

Newsom said he’s not paying attention to Cox’s political attacks.

“We’re out here attacking the problems of this state,” Newsom said. “We’re in the Central Valley trying to attack poverty, trying to deal with the health care crisis that (Cox’s) party helped create. We’re going to be attacking climate issues…which he denies. That’s where I’m focusing my attacks.”

Newsom won’t be ignoring Cox for the entire campaign. On Tuesday, campaign officials for both Newsom and Cox confirmed the two would participate in a debate moderated by KQED, the San Francisco-based NPR affiliate. Tentatively scheduled for the morning of Oct. 8, it appears to be the only planned debate before Election Day.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article217457205.html#storylink=cpy

 

Gov. Brown: “Radical Traditionalist

Noted biographer Miriam Pawel’s just-published book is “The Browns of California: The Family that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation.”  Her LA Times op ed:

In keeping with tradition, the Sacramento legislative session opened in 1976 with the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast, which proved anything but traditional.

British anthropologist Gregory Bateson delivered the sermon, a parable about a Native American church and its peyote sacrament. A Sufi choir sang. Guests were served yogurt, pineapple and cheese.

“I suppose we have come here this morning in recognition of the fact that all that we do across the street at the Capitol is dependent upon things and forces and a spirit which none of us control but all of us must respect,” said the 37-year-old governor who had orchestrated the unusual program, Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Later that day, the Assembly passed a routine bill to change the state calendar. For more than a century, Sept. 9 had been a state holiday, in celebration of the date on which California joined the union. Lawmakers wanted to move Admission Day to the second Monday in September, to ensure a three-day weekend.

The governor who zealously upended conventions responded with indignation.

“For 125 years California has celebrated its admission into the Union on September 9th,” Brown wrote in his veto message. “To change now comes a bit late in our history and hardly seems in keeping with the Bicentennial spirit.”

Jerry Brown arrived in Sacramento in the mid-’70s determined to shake up the Capitol, disdainful of old-style political rituals. Yet Brown’s challenges to the status quo masked a deep respect for different traditions, the kind that shaped the history and character of California. That tension has been one of the constants that defines the decades-long political career of Jerry Brown, irreverent iconoclast and member of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

Jerry absorbed a reverence for California at an early age from his father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, first elected to public office when his son was 5. Few could rival Pat in his exuberant embrace of the state, its people, its zeitgeist. As governor from 1959 to 1967, Pat loved to fly in the Grizzly, the state propeller plane, glued to the window with binoculars. He could not imagine a reason to live anywhere else, so great was his faith in California exceptionalism.

The phrase — “California exceptionalism” — was coined by historian and social activist Carey McWilliams, who traced the state’s special quality directly to its creation in the wake of the discovery of gold. “In California, the lights went on all at once, in a blaze, and they never have dimmed,” he wrote in his 1949 classic, “California, the Great Exception.”

That California celebrated a holiday called Admission Day, McWilliams wrote, reflected the unique circumstances under which the state joined the union in 1850, when the Gold Rush drove an urgent need for government. California leapt from frontier to statehood, a land of immigrants from around the world, with no existing social order; a place of opportunity and experimentation.

That was the spirit that imbued the first administration of Jerry Brown, as he set out to reshape the social order of Sacramento. He made unconventional appointments and spurned advice from the political establishment. He chose women to lead agencies that had always been run by men. He picked a regent for the UC system who believed the university was wasted on all but about 10% of the students. He hired a NASA astronaut as a top advisor and lobbied for a California satellite.

Yet Brown was a fourth-generation Californian educated by Jesuits, who had opened the first college in the state. He was a classics major at Cal who spent summers in Yosemite as a youngster and hiked Half Dome as an adult because his father had done so before him.

“I think that Jerry more than anyone looks to the past for guidance,” his wife, Anne Gust Brown, said as he was sworn in for his final term as governor in 2015. “For guidance and for principles.”

He has described his belief system as “optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect.” The optimism is rooted in his faith in Californians’ ability to tackle what he calls not problems, but “conditions.” That has allowed him to deliver bad news with equanimity, whether he is expounding on the existential threat of climate change or billion-dollar budget shortfalls caused by the Great Recession.

“California will come back,” Brown said confidently in 2010, as he staged his own comeback amid a fiscal crisis that had led pundits to call the state ungovernable. “It’s the continuity, it’s the foresight, and it’s the embrace of the tremendous diversity and innovation that is California.”

By the time he returned to the governor’s office in 2011, many of his ideas that had seemed revolutionary the first time around were not just mainstream but essential: diversity in state agencies and the judiciary, solar power, wind farms.

Brown had changed too: Twice the age he had been the first time around, married, his attachment to tradition manifested in more visible ways. The governor who lived decades ago in an apartment with almost no furniture moved into the governor’s mansion. The leader who once spurned the social niceties of Sacramento invited legislators to dinner. The son who once kept his father at arm’s length hung photos of Pat Brown on his office walls.

But the spirit of the self-proclaimed troublemaker has persisted through the years — a radical traditionalist, with a sentimental attachment to the state.

“These declinists, these dystopians, as I like to call them, who have this noir view of California — they’re all wet! They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about!” he said in an address at the Commonwealth Club in November 2010. “This is a vibrant, creative place, one of the most extraordinary pieces of real estate and collection of human beings in the whole world.”

To Jerry Brown’s dismay, Admission Day is no longer an official California holiday. Today, the 168th Admission Day will be marked in Sacramento with only a modest celebration: ice cream and cake on the Capitol steps, entertainment by an aptly named barbershop quartet, the Checkered Past. And one of Brown’s final proclamations.

“The observance of Admission Day was once prominent in the civic life of our state and nation,” he writes in the message he has issued each Sept. 9 since 2012. He quotes his 1976 veto message about the holiday and laments that his action then only forestalled the inevitable. Sept. 9 was ultimately eliminated as a state holiday in exchange for a movable “personal day” for state workers.

“Convenient to some,” Brown notes in his proclamation, “but in no way respectful of our storied founding.”

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-pawel-brown-traditionalist-iconoclast-20180909-story.html

 

Voter Registration Steers to the Middle of the Road

California is seeing an unusual uptick in voters registered without a party preference through the state’s new Motor Voter program. Nearly three in five unregistered voters declare themselves as “no party preference” when they visit the Department of Motor Vehicles. Meanwhile, existing voters are starting to move away from their party, with 37 percent of previously registered Democrats and 35 percent of previous Republicans.

The state’s Democratic Party did not respond to a request for comment when reached about whether it is concerned about the trend or views the Motor Voter program as a self-inflicted wound.

Republicans do not appear concerned, saying the party will not change its messaging in the near future. Matt Fleming, a spokesman for the CA GOP, said Democrats lost twice as many people through the Motor Voter program. Fleming acknowledged he sees people turning away from both parties.

He said, “I don’t have a great answer as to why voters are becoming more and more independent, but no party preference voters do vote for us. … The message is (continuing) advocating for lower taxes, smaller government intrusion on our lives, increased personal freedom, safety and security, educational choice.”

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article217999175.html#storylink=cpy

 

Legislative Session Leaned Left, But Ended Business-Friendly

Commentary from CalMatters

The just-ended biennial session of the California Legislature was arguably the most liberal in California.

Driven by their party’s anti-Donald Trump fervor, the Legislature’s majority Democrats drafted and passed hundreds of bills, many of them openly aimed at setting California apart from what Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have been doing.

The legislative session’s overall left-of-center tone, however, had a curious exception.

The California Chamber of Commerce did even better than usual in sidetracking the liberal measures that it placed on its notorious “job killer” list.

Over the last two decades, ever since the annual list was first published, the chamber and allied business groups have rung up about a 90 percent kill ratio. But in 2018, the organization was even more successful, killing or watering down all but one of the 29 bills that it targeted, including one added in the dying hours of the session. Most vanished without leaving the political DNA of rollcall votes.

The one survivor had a familiar author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a San Diego Democrat who has a remarkable record of getting her “job killer” bills, most of which deal with labor union or employment issues, through the Legislature.

Her victory this year was a biggie. Assembly Bill 3080 bars employers from imposing arbitration agreements as a condition of hiring employees.

It was framed as a way of protecting women from sexual harassment on the job by making it easier for them to sue and is a major piece of an anti-harassment package that legislators passed after they were embarrassed by harassment allegations against fellow lawmakers and legislative staffers.

The chamber argued in vain that the bill would just benefit personal injury attorneys, would delay settlements of employment disputes and may be set aside by the courts as an infringement on federal arbitration law.

The last-minute addition to the job-killer list was Assembly Bill 893 by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, a Coachella Democrat, which would have required the state’s utilities to acquire more geothermal electric power, thus boosting a project sponsored by the Imperial Irrigation District.

It wasn’t the first time the Imperial district has pushed such a bill, and this one lasted just three days before being quietly killed in the Senate Rules Committee.

Unlike AB 893, most “job killer” bills are, like Gonzalez Fletcher’s successful measure, sponsored by four major groups allied with the Democratic majority – labor unions, trial attorneys, environmental groups and consumer protection advocates.

They tend to be major agenda items for those groups, which makes their demise even more remarkable.

Among the failures was a Senate-passed universal health care plan, which was blocked in the Assembly by Speaker Anthony Rendon, who cited its lack of a financing mechanism.

Rendon was chastised by the uber-liberal wing of his party, which considers universal health care its highest policy priority.

Ultimately, the Legislature created a blue-ribbon commission to study the issue for three years, which will remove immediate pressure on Rendon and other leaders, such as Governor-in-waiting Gavin Newsom, to act.

A major contributing factor to the stall on health care, as well as several other bills on the list, was the palpable reluctance of many Democratic legislators to pass any more new taxes.

That reluctance stemmed from the June recall of a Democratic state senator, Josh Newman, who had voted for a package of gas taxes and other fees for transportation projects. A November ballot measure, Proposition 6, would repeal the taxes.

Ironically, the transportation taxes are strongly supported by the California Chamber of Commerce.

https://calmatters.org/articles/commentary/once-again-most-job-killer-bills-rejected/

 

Restore “Regular Order”: Former Foes Launch CA Institute for Political Civility

Commentary from LA Times

Former President Obama didn’t mince words denouncing “the politics of division” during a South Africa speech in July.

“The politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment [are] on the move” — not just in the United States, but all over the world, he asserted, adding: “People just make stuff up….

“We see it in the growth of state-sponsored propaganda. We see it in internet fabrications. We see it in the blurring of lines between news and entertainment. We see the utter loss of shame among political leaders when they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more.”

“You have to believe in facts,” Obama continued. “Without facts, there’s no basis for cooperation. If I say this is a podium and you say this is an elephant, it’s going to be hard for us to cooperate.”

And there was the late Sen. John McCain’s memorable final speech to the U.S. Senate last year. He lamented that the chamber had become “more partisan, more tribal … than any other time I remember. … Both sides have let this happen.”

“Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the internet. To hell with them,” the Arizona Republican continued. “Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. … We’re getting nothing done.”

Polarization has poisoned politics from top to bottom in this country — from ill-mannered President Trump down to uncivil shouting protesters inside Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The poison long ago infected social media and is worsened daily by the obsessively tweeting president.

So what can be done about it? Realistically, nothing until Trump is up for reelection in 2020. If he’s booted out of the White House, politicians might get the message and rediscover comity and bipartisanship. But most likely, politics won’t become halfway civil again until the next generation of activists and leaders emerges.

At USC, two longtime political street fighters are working on it.

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum and Republican guru Mike Murphy are heading up a new Center for the Political Future.

“The political divide is as stark as it’s been in modern memory and spans from the #resist [Trump] movement on the left to #Make America Great Again on the right,” says the USC announcement of the ambitious effort.

The program will bring in political pros for civil debates and public policy discussions, showing students they don’t need to scream at each other to make their points. And without ticking off people, they can cooperate and work on solutions to today’s problems.

“We’re trying to expose students to civil, fact-based dialogue,” Shrum says. “Hopefully, the new generation will have a tolerance for different viewpoints and an intolerance for fact-free politics.”

He adds: “There’s an incredible [student] interest in politics that has been spurred by Trump.”

The center will hold conferences on such topics as “the politics of climate change,” Shrum says. “I have no interest in another conference with people saying, ‘The polar cap is melting and the planet is threatened.’ I want to know, for example, what can be the private sector’s role. California has been leading the way on this.”

“We’ll also have a conference on tribalism and what drives people into tribes.”

There’ll be fellows — Republicans and Democrats — teaching classes on practical politics.

They’ll use the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll as a research tool.

Murphy, who has worked on six presidential campaigns and managed several gubernatorial races — including that of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003 — wants to create a new winning high-road strategy.

“When the voter fatigue really hits and Republicans are looking for something new because they’ve gotten clobbered, I want to have something interesting,” Murphy says. “I don’t think anyone in politics now is looking for anything like this. But after having to pick up more arms and limbs, there’ll be an interest in new ideas. And having the right answer at the right time is gold.”

Shrum has been an advisor for several Senate and gubernatorial candidates. He was a speech writer for Sen. George McGovern and Sen. Ted Kennedy in their presidential bids, and was an advisor to Al Gore when he ran for president in 2000. He is currently director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

Shrum says he wants to analyze the gender gap in politics.

“A lot of research shows the gender gap is driven more by race than gender,” he says. “White women vote more Democratic than white men, but they actually vote Republican in presidential elections.”

Minorities of both genders generally vote Democratic.

“We want people to not just respect each other, but respect the truth,” Shrum says. “We have to get back to fact-based politics where we operate from a common set of facts.”

Murphy says we’re “in a shouting bubble, where the other side is not just your opponent, but your enemy. … ‘I’m right and you’re evil. Everything you say is a lie.’ … Any compromise is evil and must be punished by the party tribe.”

“‘Shrummy’ and I can barely agree on lunch,” Murphy adds. “But we agree there has to be lunch. There has to be rules for combat. I don’t want to clobber Bob just to get a cheeseburger.”

“We’re not goody two-shoes,” Murphy says, “but we understand politics.

“…Politics has to be pretty awful to get professionals like us to become reformers.”

If nothing else, the students should be entertained.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-bob-shrum-mike-murphy-usc-politics-20180910-story.html#nt=oft13a-1gp1

 

Climate Change Leadership “Very Important” to Majority of Californians

A majority of Californians say it is very important (54%) that the state is a world leader in fighting climate change; 24% say it is somewhat important. Democrats (67%) are much more likely than independents (48%) and Republicans (23%) to say it is very important. Strong majorities of Latinos (68%) and African Americans (65%)—and fewer whites (47%) and Asian Americans (46%)—say it is very important. Two in three Californians (65%) favor the state acting independently of the federal government to combat global warming, while 28% are opposed. Democrats (82%) are far more likely than independents (61%) or Republicans (29%) to favor state efforts. Majorities across regions and age, education, gender, income, and racial/ethnic groups support state action.

http://www.ppic.org/publication/californians-views-on-climate-change/?utm_source=ppic&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=epub

 

Gov. Signs Clean Energy Law…Obstacles Ensue

California has some hurdles to overcome in meeting the most ambitious clean energy goal in the country.

Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 100, requiring that 100 percent of the state’s electricity must come from solar, wind and other emissions-free sources by 2045.

For the fifth largest economy in the world, that would mean a wholesale transformation.

But will it bring about the end of fossils fuels in California?

If the past is any precedent, it’s going to be difficult. So far, California hasn’t gotten as much benefit from its capacity for solar as it could. That’s because California has to keep natural gas running to supply energy on cloudy days and at night.

So renewable energy has created new challenges for running the state’s electric grid. And grid operators have turned to California’s primary fossil fuel resource, large natural-gas power plants, to solve them.

That’s created an uncomfortable marriage between renewable energy and fossil fuels. And it’s one that California policymakers will have to figure out how to dissolve, if the state wants to reach its clean energy targets.

“Have no illusions. California and the rest of the world have miles to go before we achieve zero carbon emissions,” the governor said Monday, upon signing SB 100. “But you have to begin. You have to get something done. California’s been doing stuff that the rest of the world — most of the world — is just hoping they might get to someday.”

The next steps in clean energy will be a bit tougher than what the state has done so far, says Laura Wisland, who works on energy policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“The easy part is bringing renewables onto the grid,” she says. “How do we actually turn down the fossil at the same time?”

It wasn’t long ago that solar energy was considered an expensive, niche technology. Then, in 2002, California lawmakers passed the first renewable mandate, requiring utilities to put 20 percent renewable energy onto the grid. Opponents cautioned that the technology would be too expensive and unreliable.

“A lot of those fears were really unfounded,” says Wisland. “The cost of renewable energy has come down quite significantly.” Today, solar and wind are competitive with natural gas power.

In the years that followed, California lawmakers got even more ambitious, requiring 33 percent renewables by 2020 and 50 percent by 2030.

“One of the most important things we’ve done over the years is the legislature has set goals that are within reach but seem like stretch goals at the time,” Wisland says.

Today, about a third of California’s electricity comes from renewables, including solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydropower dams.

Solar installations, in particular, skyrocketed. In just five years, solar went from less than 1 percent of California’s in-state electricity generation in 2012 to over 11 percent in 2017.

But electricity from natural gas has also held steady. In 2017, it represented more than 40 percent of California’s in-state generation.

And that’s because solar energy has fundamentally shifted the way the state’s electric grid is run.

That’s because solar energy has fundamentally shifted the way the state’s electric grid is run. When the majority of Californians turn on their lights, it’s due in large part to about a dozen people staring at a wall of screens in Folsom, California. It’s the California Independent System Operator, which runs most of the state’s grid.

“It’s constantly solving a constant problem,” said Nancy Traweek, who directs systems operations there.

When I visited two years ago, it was a sunny day, which meant the state’s solar farms were cranking out electricity. But solar presents a few tricky problems for grid operators.

“Within an hour, you could have a cloud come over a solar field and then a few minutes later move away and then come back over,” Traweek said. That would cause the power supply to drop suddenly. “That needs to come from somewhere else immediately.”

Solar electricity also drops off as the sun sets, but that is the time when the state needs electricity the most, because Californians are coming home from work and turning their lights on.

So grid operators have to keep natural gas plants running in the background. If they’re turned off, they can take as long as eight hours to start up if the power plant hasn’t been run recently

But running solar and natural gas together during the day can create more electricity than is needed, especially in the spring and fall, when Californians aren’t running their air air conditioners. And flooding the grid with too much power can cause it to fail.

“Now we really [have] to start cutting as much as we possibly can,” said Traweek. “If that’s not done, then you could have a blackout.”

So, grid operators have to tell solar farms to shut off. And it’s happening more and more often. So far this year, California has forgone enough solar electricityto power San Francisco for 20 days.

“Part of that problem is that we’re not making enough room for solar on the grid,” says Wisland. “There’s a lot of different ways to deal with that issue.”

The extra solar energy could be stored in large batteries or other energy storage technologies, or it could be shared with neighboring states. That would preclude the necessity of turning it off.

“We can do more to shift our electricity demand to the middle of the day, so that we’re taking advantage of that solar resource,” Wisland says. “We can also do more to make investments in different types of renewable generation technologies that actually do generate during the nighttime. Examples of that are geothermal or wind, especially wind in other places in the West.”

The state has mandated that California utilities install energy storage. Many of those solutions, however, are still being developed.

Maybe that’s why the natural gas industry isn’t quite as worried as you’d think.

“The bulk of the modern gas fleet is going to stick around and be needed for a while,” says Matt Barmack of Calpine, which owns 20 natural gas power plants in California.

Today, the big batteries on the grid only store several hours worth of electricity. That is not enough to fill big energy gaps created by the  weather.

“Not just hours or days, but weeks when solar generation is low and wind generation is low,” Barmack says. “And gas is very good for getting through those kinds of events.”

But the rise in solar power has upended the economic model for many natural gas plants in California.

“It used to be that we would generate the most in the afternoon,” Barmack says. Now, that’s when solar is available at a very low price, and the electricity from natural gas power can’t compete.

“It’s getting harder, and there’s definitely less compensation available from the energy market,” says Barmack. “We’ve retired several plants already probably before the end of their economically useful lives.”

Barmack says there’s a real risk that many natural gas power plants will go out of business while California still needs them.

“I think in some cases that’s OK, because that’s a market signal that the generation from those plants isn’t necessary anymore,” says Wisland.

But there needs to be a careful exit strategy for natural gas power, he says. Some natural gas plants are located in places where they’re important to ensure reliable power for a local area.

“It’s clear that there is going to be a role for some natural gas on the system,” Wisland says. “And in those cases, we will need to have a conversation about whether it’s necessary to rethink the way certain natural gas plants get paid, at least in the short term, so that they don’t retire before we’re ready to replace them with a cleaner resource.”

That could be through an existing special energy market in California, known as “resource adequacy.” Power plants get payments that way simply for being available to ensure the grid can function reliably.

Some argue those annual payments aren’t enough to keep natural gas power plants around. That’s already led to a controversy over one of Calpine’s natural gas power plants, which was granted extra payments from the grid operators to stay open.

While California’s 2045 goal could mean the end of fossil fuel plants as they operate today, there could be a way for them to survive. The state’s electricity doesn’t only have to come from renewable energy, but “clean” sources that don’t produce emissions.

So, Calpine says it’s looking at capturing the carbon emissions from its power plants and trapping them, a technology known as carbon capture and storage. But the technology is still in its early days.

“It’s safe to say that it’s at the pilot phase,” says Barmack. “It’s definitely something we’re interested in.”

The question remains about how fast technology like energy storage will develop to augment renewable energy.

“You can do a lot with wind, solar and storage technology, but it’s very difficult to squeeze the last bit of gas generation out of the system,” says Barmack. “How far do we really want to go,” he says, alluding to the state’s new 100 percent goal. “Is 95 percent enough, given that 95 percent is likely to be a lot less expensive than 100 percent?”

But “2045 is a really long time away, and we’ve got a lot of tools on the table already to get there,” says Wisland. “California never ceases to surpass and exceed people’s expectations in terms of what we can come up with when we set our minds to it.”

https://www.kqed.org/science/1930972/why-100-percent-clean-energy-in-california-is-gonna-be-tricky

 

Governor Highlights Climate Change Legacy with Global Summit

California Gov. Jerry Brown, whose term expires in January, has made renewable energy and climate change a centerpiece of his final term. This week, he co-hosts a global climate summit in San Francisco. He discussed the issue in an interview with San Jose Mercury News resources and environment writer Paul Rogers.

PR: Why have this event in the first place? Some people will say that California is not its own country.

JB: “The whole purpose of this summit was to boost ambition to give a chance to the sub-national jurisdictions — states and regions — and also corporations and other entities like universities and non-profits, to come together to express their greater commitment so that we build from the grass roots a greater demand for more action. A demand that is driven by actions at the state, the regional and the corporate level, but all advancing the cause, and putting the Paris agreement on the world’s agenda. There are many other topics. The tweets of Donald Trump have gotten more publicity than all the climate stories of the past two years. That indicates that more needs to be done, and one of the ‘mores’ is this particular summit.”

PR: Why have you made climate change such a centerpiece of your last two terms as governor?

JB: “Concern about the environment goes to the heart of human existence, of society, of the underlying physical conditions that make human life possible. I would use an analogy to theology. It’s not theology in a strict sense, but it’s dealing with the fundamental and the existential. And that’s why I took such an interest even in my first two terms. I spoke about climate change in the early 1980s, but it’s become more insistent because the parts per million are increasing, the climate is changing, the scientific reports — there are literally thousands of peer-reviewed reports on climate change that simply didn’t exist 30 years ago. This is a topic that in fact is fundamental. It’s imperative. And I feel that this is something that as a Californian, I can contribute to because we have the institutional framework that was created a long time ago under the Clean Air Act that gives our air board such authority on auto emissions, and under Schwarzenegger, on carbon emissions. We have a sensitivity here, a value, placed on the beauty of the state. The environment has always seemed fundamental, and not passing. This is more fundamental and that’s something that has always interested me from the time I entered the Jesuit seminary until today. I want to get down to the roots of things, and certainly environment and climate change goes right to the heart of what permits human existence to continue.”

PR: And you’ve seen it get worse in recent years with the big wildfires and the drought.

JB: “Oh yeah. It’s getting more real now, with the drought and the fires. Certainly, the fire season is extended. That fire tornado up in Redding had never happened before. And the heat and the winds, and the combination with the low humidity that took place in the Napa fires. The world is changing. The scientific evidence is irrefutable, and widely, widely accepted. So the Republicans, the deniers in Washington, the president, are really deviant to the international norm. And that’s why it’s important that America maintain its climate actions through the states, cities and private organizations, companies and nonprofits. We can’t just let Trump undermine and sabotage America’s part. This affects us, it affects the world. And as a matter of fact, many of the other countries are stalling out. We are facing a truly devastating challenge and climate change, although it comes on gradually, it has an irreversible quality.

PR: What do you say to folks who worry that the costs of action are too high? Higher gasoline prices, higher energy prices, electricity, that kind of thing?

JB: “Well, just ask the people of Redding or Napa or Santa Barbara, or Riverside if they think the price is too high. We are going to be talking devastation, tragedies that are going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. With defense, we don’t even have an immediate enemy, but the Congress mobilizes over $700 billion. We know that climate change is the enemy of humanity. It’s an impersonal enemy. And in fact, it’s ourselves through our collective behavior. But we have to wake up to it so it saves money. Some people trot out cost-benefit analyses. I’ve read a few in the Wall Street Journal this week with their analysis of energy and its costs. Absolutely false. The do-nothing option is by far the most expensive. We are going to spend well over a billion dollars (this year) on our emergency response. Not all of it is climate change, but a significant element is climate change, and every year, every decade, it will be more climate change causing billions of dollars in floods, mudslides and fires. This is not about whether the costs go up a little bit. The costs are going up and we better spend the money on the right topics to minimize catastrophe, not just to save pennies. We are talking about saving millions and hundreds of millions of lives, not to mention our own civilization. If we start getting massive migrations coming into Europe from Africa, what we are seeing today in xenophobia and fear of migrants, that’s going to multiply a thousand-fold. So to talk about cost here is to miss the gigantic cost, which would be the result of not doing anything.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/09/10/california-fires-floods-droughts-its-getting-more-real-now-jerry-brown-says-in-climate-interview/

Climate summit website:

https://www.globalclimateactionsummit.org

 

Brown Signs Green Bills at Climate Summit

Cruising the San Francisco Bay on a new plug-in hybrid ferry, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday evening signed more than a dozen environmental bills that aim to boost the electric vehicle market, particularly among poor Californians, and reinforce the state’s fight against climate change.

The laws will force ride-hailing companies to embrace fleets that emit less carbon dioxide and provide additional incentives to customers who may only be able to afford an electric car on the used market.

With nearly half of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from the transportation sector, California has made significant investments to encourage adoption of “zero-emission vehicles,” including expanding the network of charging stations and providing rebates that lower the price of new cars by thousands of dollars.

Brown in 2012 committed the state to putting 1.5 million clean cars on the road by 2025 — and earlier this year, he raised that goal to 5 million by 2030. Automakers have sold about 380,000 zero-emission vehicles in California since 2011.

“Whether we travel by car, bus, or boat the need to move to zero-emission transportation is urgent. These bills will help get more clean cars on the road and reduce harmful emissions,” Brown said in a statement.

Among the 16 measures he signed were:

▪ Senate Bill 1014, by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, which gives state regulators authority to establish emissions reduction targets for ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. The bill originally would have required the companies to provide all of their rides in zero-emission vehicles by 2029, but it was scaled back amid opposition from the tech industry.

▪ Assembly Bill 2885, by Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Pomona, which directs the state to prioritize low-income applicants for electric vehicle rebates.

▪ Senate Bill 957, by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, which allows low-income Californians to obtain carpool lane stickers for clean cars bought secondhand.

▪ Assembly Bill 193, by Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, which provides rebates for replacement batteries and fuel cells in used vehicles.

▪ Senate Bill 1013, by Lara, which adopts an Obama administration rule, thrown out in federal court, that phases out certain climate pollutants used in refrigeration.

▪ Assembly Bill 3232, by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glenda, which directs the state to study the potential for a reducing greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial buildings to at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article218362510.html#storylink=cpy

 

Congress Passes Denham & Costa Bills for Water Storage Loans

California officials have been pushing for more natural water storage since the last large-scale facility was built in 1979. Now they’re finally going to get it, thanks to political pressure, President Donald Trump and some congressional creativity.

The House approved several provisions Thursday that help fund water storage projects. The Senate is expected to concur shortly, and Trump is expected to sign the legislation into law next week.

Republican Rep. Jeff Denham and Democrat Rep. Jim Costa have been pushing for additional water storage for the state for years in constantly-at-risk-of-drought California. Since 1979, California’s population has grown 70 percent.

Denham’s proposal allows local irrigation districts to apply for low-interest federal loans from the Environmental Protection Agency to build new reservoirs, below ground storage projects, recycling and desalination projects. Those are desperately needed in parts of California to capture rains and runoff from the mountains so water can be stored and used in drier seasons and in years of drought.

Theoretically, the irrigation districts could eventually easily repay low-interest loans through control of the new water sources, and having a larger supply of water would drive down demand and cost of fresh water throughout the state. Several water storage projects in the state have already been authorized by legislation and are awaiting funding.

Costa’s proposal would allow dams and other water facilities regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers but owned by local entities to use non-federal funds.

Currently, if reports indicate more water will flow to an area in a certain season, local entities that own dams cannot provide money to the Army Corps to prepare more storage, for example. Those have to be federal funds, even though the dams are not federally owned. And water storage tends to fall low on a long list of federal priorities.

Trump has been pushing infrastructure project funding since he came into office and spoken publicly in support of more water for the Central Valley — though some of his statements have showed a misunderstanding of the issue, such as when a Tweet suggested lack of water was to blame for wildfires in California.

This is also the year Republicans are most worried about defending Denham’s seat. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won his district by three points in 2016 and the GOP frets about a blue wave taking the House in 2018.

But water — and getting more of it — is the most important issue in the district. If Denham can get some concrete wins on the water issue before November, he has a much better chance of keeping his seat.

“All Valley incumbents are at least somewhat at-risk right now,” said Carl Fogliani, a political strategist who once worked for San Joaquin Valley Republicans. “They’re showing that they’re doing their job, and water is absolutely the way to do that in these districts.”

“This has been on our agenda for ages, before I even started here in 1991,” said Bruce Blodgett, executive director of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau, which has endorsed Denham. “It’s even more important now because the changing weather patterns have been more severe in recent years.”

Denham denied politics has anything to do with the water storage action, lamenting in an interview with McClatchy that “politics is the excuse for everything I do every other year.

“This is Congress, I think most people would say getting this done in eight years is expedited,” Denham said.

He and Costa instead credit some common sense thinking on the issue, creating a new way of funding water storage instead of relying on the same federal process.

Sal Russo, a Republican political strategist based in Sacramento, said Trump probably deserved more credit than the political atmosphere.

“That probably moved it way up on the priority list — what the president wants always matters,” Russo said. “There’s politics in everything, but it’s more than that, too.”

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article218276215.html#storylink=cpy

 

Prop. 3 Water Bond Draws Newspaper Opposition

The San Diego Union Tribune in this editorial joins the San Francisco Chronicle in opposing the next water bond.

Proposition 3, which asks voters to approve $8.9 billion in bond funds for water projects, has a surface appeal. The state’s need for improved water infrastructure and new water storage facilities is plain. But there are strong reasons to reject it.

The first and most obvious is that Proposition 3 is on the ballot not because the Legislature thought it was necessary but because of signature-gatherers paid by those who stand to benefit from the bond. A July 16 CALmatters story noted that more than half the money raised to promote the measure came from business groups and farmers seeking specific improvements, especially to the 152-mile-long Friant-Kern Canal in the Central Valley. That’s why $750 million in the bond is set aside for canal repairs. This “pay to play” approach to ballot initiatives is not new, but it should still not be rewarded.

The second reason to vote no is that voters just approved a $4 billion state bond in June to pay for improvements at parks and for water projects, on top of a $7.5 billion water bond that passed in 2014. Passing a third water bond in just four years feels like throwing money at a problem. Given the poor condition of water infrastructure in California, it might be justifiable. But that only holds for a bond that was crafted in an impartial way by lawmakers or citizen committees — not by groups that would benefit from it. Vote no on Proposition 3.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/endorsements/sd-proposition-3-water-bond-20180911-story.html#share=email~story